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Ensure you are fully aware of Child Protection issues within your club

Welcome everyone to the latest edition of the Child Protection in Sport Unit newsletter.

We’ve focused this edition on athlete wellbeing and we’ll be hearing about the work that the eating disorder scoping group have been recently developing. This includes future plans to focus roles and responsibilities across five areas – prevention, screening, early detection, access to support/treatment and recovery/rehabilitation of athletes.

Also in this issue, we’ll look at the new Mental Health First Aid training that Sport Northern Ireland and the Public Health Agency deliver for sports clubs and governing bodies.

And finally we’ll hear from Brunel University, who have provided our readers with further details of their study, which is based on mental toughness of athletes.

If you have any feedback or questions we’d love to hear from you, so please get in touch.

Eating disorders are highly prevalent amongst athletes in sport, especially sports that are weight sensitive such as endurance, weight category, aesthetic sports and also jumping events. Helping athletes with eating disorders rarely require simple solutions. However, measures can be incorporated into athlete support packages to minimise the risk of disorders developing. The CPSU co-ordinated a scoping meeting to explore the risks of eating disorders for young athletes and consider how sports organisations can be supported. Read more

Sport NI, in association with the Public Health Agency, delivers a Mental Health First Aid training programme for sports clubs and governing bodies. This new programme will help organisations to develop mental health support structures and education programmes, which will cover all aspects of positive mental health for athletes from grassroots to elite/high performance level. Participants will learn new skills such as, how to recognise the symptoms of mental health problems and how to effectively guide the person towards appropriate professional help. Read more

Frank Owusu-Sekyere and Misia Gervis from Brunel University share their latest findings from a study with elite level youth football coaches. They explored their perceptions of the significance of mental toughness and the methods they used to develop this within youth athletes. Read more